Here's when you should start talking about marriage with your partner

Discussions regarding marriage depend upon age, fertility, and mutual desires of the couple.YouTube

It can be difficult to know when to bring up marriage with your significant other.

Relationship expert Paulette Sherman gave INSIDER tips on how to know when to start talking about marriage.

Although every couple is different, discussions around marriage usually depend on the age, fertility, and mutual desires of the couple.

Marriage is not the goal of every relationship. But it is probably fair to say that marriage is an eventual goal for many people in long-term relationships. So if you are in a relationship of any kind, it's possible that marriage is on your mind.

Still, as with all relationship-defining discussions — like when to become exclusive, when to introduce your partner to your family, and when to reveal your astrological chart to your significant other— no one wants to be the one to introduce the topic, only to find that their timing is all wrong.

So if you are wondering when you should pop the question about, you know, popping the question, you're not alone. Here, Dr. Paulette Sherman, an NYC-based psychologist and author of " Dating From The Inside Out," explains when and how to start talking about marriage with your partner.

Two factors tend to serve as an impetus for the marriage discussion — age and children.

"Often, when people are older and in their mid-30s or later, they broach the topic of getting engaged by a year or a year and a half [into the relationship]," Sherman told INSIDER. "When women are 35 and older, they may start thinking about their fertility window and want to know whether their partner is invested in marriage and a family. When people are younger they may not be as concerned with these milestones. Sometimes they want to live together first or just to know each other for awhile in different circumstances."

Statistically, this makes sense. According to a study done at the University of Utah in 2015, the best time to get married in order to have a long, successful marriage is between the ages of 28 and 32. This doesn't mean that you have to drastically alter your time frame if your own wedding plans don't line up with that particular bracket. But it does explain why age influences how long people wait (or don't) before deciding to get married.

If you know you want to get married, it can help to discuss it with your partner earlier in the relationship than you may think.

Still, no matter how old you are, if you are in a serious relationship and marriage is something you are thinking about, it can't hurt to talk about it. You may be worried that doing so may freak out your partner, but Sherman says this isn't the case. (And, if that happens, it's probably a good sign that your values may not be completely aligned.) In fact, discussing marriage in a general sense can be a good way to bond with your partner, and to get a good idea of what their feelings on marriage may be.

"You can definitely discuss your life vision and wanting to be married and/or have kids without implying that your current partner will be the one you choose," Sherman told INSIDER. "In fact, that is one way to reveal who you are and what you want without putting pressure on them to make any immediate decision about you. Oftentimes when you bring up your life and relationship vision in general, the other person will reveal theirs too. This at least can give you an idea of whether you are on similar pages, although it may not reveal a definite timeline."

There's no need to have a definitive timeline for your wedding. CW TV

Honesty and openness are non-negotiable when discussing marriage with your partner.

Sherman emphasized that every couple is different, so there is no standard timeline or relationship blueprint for all couples to use. But there are still some pieces of advice that can work for pretty much every relationship.

"When discussing marriage with a partner it's important to be honest about what you want and not to play games," Sherman told INSIDER. "Ideally, it will be a dialogue where you better understand one another and see if your life visions mesh and can gauge your mutual feelings and compatibility."

Once engagement plans start to appear imminent, it's also helpful to discuss some more mundane things, like money, careers, religion, and lifestyle choices, plus "what's most important in a marriage to you," Sherman told INSIDER. This may not be quite as exciting as, say, discussing potential wedding venues or honeymoon plans, but it's vital for laying a foundation to see if you and your partner are truly compatible in long-term sense.

Again, these are all suggestions.

"There is no one right way [to approach marriage], and every person can be different in terms of if, how, and when they want to discuss marriage," Sherman told INSIDER.

But with these guidelines, it should be easy to make the theory of marriage seem slightly more realistic — regardless of your timeline